Building a Static Farm Level Spatial Microsimulation Model: Statistically Matching the Irish National Farm Survey to the Irish Census of Agriculture

This paper reviews a statistical matching technique used to match the Irish Census of Agriculture to the Irish National Farm Survey (NFS) to produce a farm level spatial microsimulation model for Ireland. Using statistical matching techniques, economists can now create attribute rich datasets by matching across the common variables in two or more datasets. Static spatial microsimulation then uses theses synthetic datasets to analyse the relationships among regions and localities and to project the spatial implications of economic development and policy changes. The farm level spatial microsimulation model developed in this paper uses one of many combinational optimatisation techniques - simulated annealing - to match the Census and the NFS. We then use this matched NFS and Census information to produce small area farm population microdata estimates for the year 2002. Using the newly constructed farmlevel spatial microsimulation model and the associated spatially disaggregated farm population microdata set this paper then briefly analyses the spatial distribution of family farm income in Ireland.